Chapter 3 Part 16

Ultrecht took in the area surrounding him. Where he was could only vaguely be described as a room. The floor was of a black obsidian-like substance scattered with sand, but the walls were curtains of colored light. The ceiling was polished to a mirror-like shine. The elementalist pondered his situation for several minutes. It would do no good to try to move through the stone floor. In addition to it being very hard, he had no assurance that there was any openings beneath him. He wasn't sure he wanted to try shattering the ceiling either because there were too many things that could go wrong with the shattering of mirrors. He could think of several magical uses for mirrors and all of them put him in a bad situation. That left the walls. Each was a different color and shimmered like a waterfall of light.

Ultrecht walked over to a blue wall and tried to detect some sounds or smells that would give some clues as to its properties. Finding none, he put a hand inside his robe and pulled forth an apple that he had picked up the day before. He munched absently on the fruit while he tried to think of some way to test the walls of his prison.

When he finished with his snack, he was about to try to dispel the magic of the walls blindly when on inspiration he tossed the apple core at the blue wall. The apple hit the wall then fell to the floor and shattered like a piece of glass. Intrigued, Ultrecht retrieved a piece and examined it closely. It was frozen solid.

Prismatic magic! Ultrecht smiled. Prismatics were a series of complex spells utilizing all of the Eight Elements of the Universe, but the spell was channeled by the element of Light. Because of the blue coloring and freezing effect, Ultrecht strongly suspected that this prismatic wall was a combination of the elements of Light and Wind.

Since the apple core had not penetrated the light, suggesting a force field of some kind, and since the element of Wind was paramount in the development of force, sonic and cold spells, Ultrecht considered attacking the wall with a combination of Earth and Shadow Spells. By attacking the wall with opposite elemental spells, Ultrecht hoped to dispel the thing. But, before he went and started slinging magic, as Avery would have called it, he needed to know more about his prison. Consequently, he decided to try a different wall.

The next wall was a bright pink and seemed to have no effect on the piece of frozen apple core that Ultrecht threw through it. He didn't trust that one, it looked too easy. The third wall shimmered with a bluish, white color, brighter than the first. As Ultrecht drew near, the hairs on his arms stood on end as did the hair on his head. The wall was charged with electricity. This wall was totally under the influence of the element of Light. All he had to do was attack it with a Shadow spell of equal or greater power and the wall would come down. But, there was a problem. Most Shadow spells were of mind altering or mental enhancement type. One of the most powerful of all was the domination spell. But there was no mind within the wall to dominate.

Suddenly, he had it. Shadow spells also covered energy draining. All he had to do was drain energy off the wall into himself. He just hoped he could hold the power or else the overload could burn him from the inside out.

Ultrecht removed his robe. Underneath he had worn two shoulder bags and a belt of pouches. From one of the pouches, he took a piece of black chalk and started to draw an inverted triangle on the stone floor. The black chalk did not show up on the black floor. Ultrecht cursed. Even before casting his spell, he was defeated.

Ultrecht then checked the green wall. He tossed another piece of apple core and watched with dismay as it disintegrated before his eyes. The element of Time was in use here. The only way to attack that was to use Shadow and Thought-based spells. Again, he was defeated by the black floor and the wall's lack of a mind to work against. Still, there was the red wall, but Ultrecht already knew the answer to that one. A few moments after he tossed the remains of the apple core through, he had begun to smell cooked apple.

He thought about erecting a magical shield and just walking though, but without any idea as to the power level of these walls, he wasn't ready to take that risk. The prismatic spells required a master wizard of mage level just to erect one wall, so Ultrecht knew he was not confronting a novice.

Ultrecht considered the possibilities of tunneling, but the hard stone floor did not hold much promise. Magical tunneling depended on the hardness of the medium. Ultrecht was sure that he would not get very far in an appreciable amount of time.

That left the roof. The ceiling was very shiny. It's reflectivity was like that of a mirror, but there was no glass involved. He cursed again. Glass he might have been able to cut. Glass. Something in his mind was trying to get out. Something to do with glass. Ultrecht concentrated on the idea. He unconsciously kicked the sand on the floor around with his foot.

It hit him like a ton of bricks. Quickly, he emptied one of his shoulder bags and gathered up all the sand on the floor into it. He rummaged through the contents of his other bag until he found what he was looking for: a crucible and a triangular scroll tube. He emptied both items and filled the crucible with sand. Then he put the crucible, sand and all, into the red curtain.

After several moments, he took a slim dagger and pulled the crucible out of the curtain. The container was filled with a bright glowing orange liquid. Well that left little doubt as to how much heat that wall posessed.

Wrapping his hand in cloth and leathers, he lifted the crucible and poured its contents into the scroll tube. He repeated the operation twice more. Then with the help of a polishing cantrip, he had four large prisms sitting before him cooling.

It was simple. The whole thing had not been a prison or a trap. It was a test of intelligence and he was on the verge of solving the riddle. The floor and the electrified wall were stumpers and had nothing to do with the puzzle. All he had to do was use two of the prisms to set the heat of the red wall against the cold of the blue one. Since the spells were prismatic, the walls had to obey the laws of the element of Light. The only problem was that the heat of the red wall might start to melt its prism or the cold of the blue wall might fog its prism before they canceled each other out. That is where the third one came in. The disintegration solved the problem. Disintegration was a spell based on the element of Time. It functioned by accelerating time until things fell apart. Light couldn't be disintegrated, but the effect of the canceling beams could be accelerated.

When all was ready, Ultrecht used the empty scroll tubes as tongs to insert the prisms into the curtains of light. As each one was put in place, beams of colored light refracted up to the mirrored surface then down to the opposing wall. Sparks flew and the light in the room grew so bright that Ultrecht had to squint his eyes. Ultrecht carefully moved over to the green wall. Already, he could see the prism in the red wall starting to glow. In a moment, it would start melting. He took the tongs and stuck the last two prisms into the green wall and bounced one green beam to the spot where the red beam entered the blue wall, and the other green beam to where the blue ray entered the red wall. He then covered his eyes and waited.

A few moments later, he looked up to see what was happening. The blue wall was almost gone with very little remaining. The red wall was in the same condition, but the prism of the wall was starting to melt. Ultrecht knew that as that prism stopped draining heat, the blue wall would intensify and so would the red wall. As long as they were balanced, their power was greatly reduced. He had to act quickly.

Hastily gathering his belongings, he dashed to the blue wall and threw himself through it. When he landed, there was frost on his hair and the tips of his fingers were slightly numb from the cold, but all in all, he was in good condition.

"Well done, Ultrecht, Master of the Elements."

Ultrecht spun around to see a small girl of about twelve years of age wearing a white gown that was almost transparent enough to see that she was just entering her womanhood.

"I am sure that you have many questions," she said with an innocent smile. "If you will follow me, you will receive some of the answers."

Ultrecht did have many questions, and he also had a certain amount of anger he wanted to vent, but he couldn't do either with a half-naked little girl, so he simply followed her as she had asked.

The girl entered a large amphitheater. All Ultrecht could see was the girl's white gown shimmering in the darkness. She stopped and Ultrecht did likewise. He felt a little vulnerable standing in the dark and was about to call forth a light spell when a voice drifted through the cavern.

"Welcome Ultrecht." The voice was deep and seemed to come from all around. "I test all those who seek my knowledge and few pass the test. You yourself passed with, shall we say 'flying colors'?"

Ultrecht groaned. An oracle with a sense of humor. What next?